| Abstract |
Classical interpretation is to unearth the inner significance through explaining those classical articles. The complexity of classical interpretation results from interpreters’ different perspectives on how to understand and translate the contents and such attribute will be more obvious if we put this issue under the influence of interaction between Confucianism and Taoism during late Ming to early Manchu Dynasty. In mid-Tang Dynasty, intellectualities started to defend the pure tradition of Confucianism against others. However, as history goes to late Ming, blending the thought of Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism almost became a common characteristic among the intellectualities at that time. Even Wang Fu-Zhi (1619-1692), who disapproved the blending, still wrote some books embracing and discussing these three different thoughts. His books in Taoism are “Lao-Tse Yan”, “Zhuang-Tse Jie” and “Zhuang-Tse Tong” and Wang Xiao-Yu, who studied and annotated Wang Fu-Zhi’s some books, said “The meaning of Lao-Tse Yan is abstract and it is the most hard-to-read book among Wang Fu-Zhi’s works. Even Jhou-Yi-Wai-Jhuan is easier to be understood than the book”. Therefore, many scholars tried to discover and provided a variety of interpretation on it. As Wang Fu-Zhi maintaining Confucian belief in his whole life and vowing to resist Manchu Dynasty, how did he criticize Taoism? This article is going to discuss the purpose he annotated Lao-tse and how he transformed the thought of Taoism.
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